In the second quarter, Taiwan's handset shipments dropped sequentially because of decreased orders from Motorola and a product transition at clients from the telecom carrier sector. Shipments rose on year because of the addition of orders from Reliance and Huawei that were lacking in the same period of last year.
The US subprime woes and the natural disasters in China continued to dampen demand in the digital compact camera (DSC) market in the second quarter of 2008. The sizes of orders from some clients were not as big as what Taiwan makers had expected. Although the delivery of shipments delayed from the first quarter managed to drive up second-quarter shipments sequentially, the growth was much lower than the 31% that Digitimes Research had previously predicted.
With demand for 802.11n losing strength in the second quarter of 2008, and with branded players in retail channels looking to manage their inventory levels, shipments dropped to their lowest level in a year.
Taiwan's handset sector saw shipments drop 14.3% sequentially in the first quarter of 2008 because of seasonality and decreased orders from clients who were transitioning between old and new models. Compared to the same period last year, orders from Motorola declined.
Taiwan shipped 19.2 million optical disc drives (ODDs) in the first quarter of 2008, down 10.7% sequentially but up 11.4% from the same period one year earlier.
Despite the growing penetration of wireless LAN (WLAN) equipment that support the 802.11n standard, seasonal weakness still dragged on the market and overall WLAN shipments from Taiwan fell 7% to 54.2 million units. NIC shipments were down 7% while wireless router (WR) shipments were down 9%.
Taiwan's digital camera shipments dropped sharply in the first quarter due to inventory issues stemming from weak demand, as economy worries affected the US and Europe markets. Taiwan shipments totaled 9.9 million units, but a sequential shipment decline of 25% was 10 percentage points more than previously predicted by Digitimes Research.
Taiwan shipped 21.3 million optical disc drives (ODDs) in the fourth quarter of 2007, down 3.8% sequentially and up 6.6% from the same period one year earlier. For the year, Taiwan shipped 80.6 million ODDs in 2007, down 7% from 2006, compared with a global growth rate of 9.7%.
Taiwan shipped 28 million notebooks in the fourth quarter of 2007, up 9% sequentially and 32% from the same period one year earlier. However, notebook shipments will fall 7% sequentially in the first quarter of 2008 amid seasonality, but shipments will still be up 39% from the same period in 2007.
Taiwan shipped 58.4 million WLAN devices in the fourth quarter of 2007, up 9.5% sequentially and up 29.4% from the same period one year earlier. Shipments included 48 million NIC devices and 10.4 million wireless routers (WR).
New orders from Nikon and Fujifilm helped Taiwan makers weather the seasonal downturn during the fourth quarter better than they did during the same period in 2006. In general, orders from old and new clients were strong, resulting in significant on-year shipment growth.
